1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cash transaction apparatus, installed in a banking agency and the like, for automatically performing cash transactions such as receipt/payment of bank notes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cash transaction apparatuses for automatically performing cash transactions, such as receiving and dispensing bank notes in accordance with the operation of a bank clerk, have recently been installed in many banking agencies such as a bank. For example, a receiving/dispensing recycling machine having a bundling machine is known as one cash transaction apparatus. The recycling machine receives the banknotes collected by an automatic teller machine (ATM) for automatically receiving/dispensing money from/to customers, and uses the collected banknotes as part of banknotes for dispensing upon withdrawal.
A receiving/dispensing recycling machine usually includes a plurality of storage safes. The banknotes received in a receiving opening of the machine, are inspecting section to discriminate their denominations, damaged/undamaged state, authenticity, etc., and then stored in the storage safes according to the denominations. In a dispensing operation, banknotes are taken out from predetermined storage safes, discriminated based on their denominations, counted at a dispensing side inspecting section, and discharged from a dispensing opening. In the latter case, the banknotes, which cannot be inspected or counted because they overlap each other or the like, are rejected and stored in a dispensing banknote reject safe provided near the dispensing opening.
The banknotes in the recycling machine are collected whenever a predetermined period of time elapses, and the amount of the collected banknotes are compared with management data stored separately. The general methods of collecting the banknotes are as follows: When each of the storage safes is detachable from the machine, the storage safes are detached from the machine, and the banknotes are taken out of the safes and inserted into the recycling machine again, for counting when the storage safes are undetachable, only the banknotes are removed from the safes and supplied to the machine, for counting.
According to the above-mentioned methods of collection, however, after the banknotes are removed from the recycling machine, they are put into the recycling machine again for counting and then removed again therefrom. For this reason, the methods are complicated, and may cause an error in operation and take a lot of time.
Upon collecting operation, if an operator leaves some of banknotes in the recycling machine carelessly, or if an operator loses some of banknotes to be inserted into the recycling machine, the counting result of collected banknotes does not coincide with management data, and the number of banknotes which have been stored in the storage safes cannot be determined correctly. It is uncertain whether the noncoincidence is caused by rejected banknotes or other reasons. In this case, it is necessary to perform an operation of collecting the dispensing reject safe and counting the number of rejected banknotes for each denomination.
The recycling machine is generally capable of dispensing about 100 banknotes at once. To dispense banknotes more than 100, 100 banknotes are discharged from the outlet and removed therefrom, and then the remaining banknotes are discharged. It is therefore necessary to repeat the discharge and removal operations a plurality of times in order to pay out several hundreds of banknotes or several thousands of banknotes, resulting in requiring a lot of time to pay out money.